Clipping Digital | Israelis, Palestinians can fly on same flights to World Cup

JERUSALEM (AP) — Foot­ball fans from Is­rael and the Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries will be able to fly di­rect­ly to the FI­FA World Cup in Qatar from Tel Aviv for the first time, soc­cer’s glob­al gov­ern­ing body an­nounced Thurs­day. The de­vel­op­ment is a break­through agree­ment for Is­rael and Qatar — two coun­tries with­out diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions

JERUSALEM (AP) — Foot­ball fans from Is­rael and the Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries will be able to fly di­rect­ly to the FI­FA World Cup in Qatar from Tel Aviv for the first time, soc­cer’s glob­al gov­ern­ing body an­nounced Thurs­day. The de­vel­op­ment is a break­through agree­ment for Is­rael and Qatar — two coun­tries with­out diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions.

The char­ter flights to Do­ha from Ben Gu­ri­on In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Tel Aviv for the tour­na­ment start­ing Nov. 20 will be open to all Pales­tini­ans, FI­FA said. That in­cludes res­i­dents and ac­cred­it­ed me­dia work­ers from the oc­cu­pied West Bank and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which has been un­der a crip­pling Is­raeli-Egypt­ian block­ade for 15 years.

Pales­tini­ans in the West Bank and Gaza do not have their own air­port and must ap­ply for a hard-to-ob­tain air­port per­mit to use Ben Gu­ri­on. Such per­mits are on­ly ap­proved, if at all, short­ly be­fore take­off.

Is­rael may still refuse to grant ex­it per­mits to res­i­dents of block­ad­ed Gaza seek­ing to fly out of Tel Aviv to at­tend the World Cup. Such per­mis­sion is on­ly grant­ed in ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances.

Is­raeli of­fi­cials had no im­me­di­ate de­tails on how many flights would take place or how many Pales­tini­ans would be al­lowed to trav­el. When asked for com­ment on the arrange­ment, Ah­mad Deek, the di­rec­tor-gen­er­al of the Pales­tin­ian For­eign Min­istry, said it was the first he’d heard of it.

Is­raeli cit­i­zens can­not or­di­nar­i­ly fly di­rect­ly to Do­ha or en­ter Qatar on their Is­raeli pass­ports. Re­la­tions have soured since Do­ha closed an Is­raeli trade of­fice in 2008 over the Gaza war. Even with­out diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions, Qatar helps me­di­ate be­tween Is­rael and Gaza‘s mil­i­tant Hamas rulers dur­ing rounds of con­flict.

Wash­ing­ton laud­ed the de­vel­op­ment and said it will «ben­e­fit Is­raeli and Pales­tin­ian soc­cer fans alike as a step to­wards ex­pand­ing greater free­dom of trav­el for all.»

«The Unit­ed States con­grat­u­lates FI­FA, Is­rael, and Qatar on the his­toric step of open­ing di­rect flights be­tween Tel Aviv and Do­ha for the du­ra­tion of the World Cup,» said U.S. State De­part­ment spokesman Ned Price. «To­day’s an­nounce­ment is a his­toric de­vel­op­ment and an im­por­tant step that al­so holds great promise to bol­ster peo­ple to peo­ple ties and eco­nom­ic re­la­tions.»

How­ev­er, the break­through trav­el arrange­ment could still fall apart.

The Qatari gov­ern­ment said that Do­ha told Is­rael that «any es­ca­la­tion in Jerusalem, Gaza or the West Bank dur­ing this time will risk the can­cel­la­tion of the agree­ment — in­clud­ing the di­rect flights.»

Vi­o­lence in the West Bank has surged in re­cent months as Is­rael has es­ca­lat­ed night­ly ar­rest raids, mak­ing 2022 the dead­liest in the oc­cu­pied ter­ri­to­ry since 2006.

FI­FA al­so an­nounced on Thurs­day that a tem­po­rary con­sular ser­vice would as­sist Is­raelis in Do­ha dur­ing the tour­na­ment. Some 3,800 Is­raelis and 8,000 Pales­tini­ans have ap­plied for the Hayya card, which acts as an en­try visa to Qatar for the soc­cer tour­na­ment.

«Con­sular ser­vices for Is­raeli cit­i­zens will be pro­vid­ed in co­or­di­na­tion with the Is­raeli Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs through a des­ig­nat­ed pri­vate­ly op­er­at­ed in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el com­pa­ny based in Do­ha,» FI­FA said.

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Yair Lapid wel­comed the agree­ment as the re­sult «hard work over the course of many months.»

A Qatari gov­ern­ment state­ment said the trav­el arrange­ment for Is­raeli cit­i­zens was «part of Qatar’s com­mit­ment to FI­FA’s host­ing re­quire­ments and it should not be politi­cized.»

Is­rael has pre­vi­ous­ly made in­roads in­to the re­gion in part due to in­ter­na­tion­al events. Dubai’s Ex­po 2020 world’s fair saw Is­rael par­tic­i­pate. The Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates and Bahrain nor­mal­ized re­la­tions with Is­rael two years ago.

To head off crit­i­cism, Qatar stressed that «its stance on nor­mal­iza­tion has not changed» and that the coun­try con­tin­ues to sup­port the cre­ation of an in­de­pen­dent Pales­tin­ian state along­side Is­rael as the so­lu­tion to the decades-old con­flict. There have been no se­ri­ous peace talks in more than a decade.

«As of late, we have not seen any pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments in the peace process that would mer­it a change in our pol­i­cy,» the Qatari gov­ern­ment added.

Qatar con­sent­ed to wel­com­ing all fans in­to the coun­try when it start­ed cam­paign­ing to host the World Cup, and when it signed con­tracts with FI­FA af­ter win­ning the vote in De­cem­ber 2010. A sim­i­lar oblig­a­tion was made to re­spect FI­FA com­mer­cial part­ners by eas­ing Qatar’s strict lim­its on the con­sump­tion and pur­chase of al­co­hol so it could be served at of­fi­cial World Cup sites.

The tour­na­ment — the first World Cup to be host­ed in the Mid­dle East and an Arab na­tion — runs from Nov. 20 to Dec. 18.

How­ev­er, Is­raeli and Pales­tin­ian fans won’t be root­ing for their na­tion­al teams. The Is­raeli na­tion­al team, which has not played in Asian qual­i­fy­ing for the World Cup since the 1970s for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons, did not ad­vance to the tour­na­ment in Qatar from its Eu­ro­pean group. The Pales­tin­ian team was elim­i­nat­ed in a pre­lim­i­nary qual­i­fy­ing group won by Sau­di Ara­bia.

On­ly fans with match tick­ets are al­lowed to en­ter Qatar un­til Dec. 2 to ease the de­mand on a lim­it­ed sup­ply of ac­com­mo­da­tion in the tiny emi­rate when all 32 teams are still play­ing. Tick­et­less fans can ar­rive lat­er, in time for the first knock­out round of 16 teams.

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Dun­bar re­port­ed from Gene­va. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Jon Gam­brell in Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, and Matthew Lee in Wash­ing­ton con­tributed to this re­port.

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AP World Cup cov­er­age: https://ap­news.com/hub/world-cup and https://twit­ter.com/AP_Sports